I've been putting off servicing my drive line and with 40k on the bike now I decided to take a look at it today since I had the wheels off for new rubber anyway. After what I discovered while in there, I will no longer be putting this off going forward. In some of the write ups I read, some mentioned they had decided to check this every time they swap rubber, I'm thinking for my bike, maybe every 20k miles or the nearest tire swap to it sounds about right. There are some great links showing how to do this procedure. The one I ran across has ScooterG's name on it:
Apparently there has been some history over this issue where bikes come out of the factory with insufficient lube. What I found on mine today was zero lube, everything was dry as a bone with nothing in there but heat induced rust. Wth Yamaha? They design a 1st class piece of machinery and they are too cheap to put some spline lube in there on the assembly line? I"m kicking myself now for putting this off for so long. In the end, it seems it was caught early enough before any real damage was done. The write up mentioned using Honda Moly 60 paste, I didn't have any on hand so I picked up some moly grease locally and will have the good Honda stuff on the shelf for next time.
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Despite the lack of grease, there is little risk of damage. The driveshaft is spring-loaded at the back end and is constantly holding the u-joint under full engagement regardless of swingarm travel. This will result in little movement/wear in the longtitudinal direction, with minor wear in the rotational direction, fortunately. I hate this too, hate seeing rust. Any grease will do, but of course, we all want the best and use moly. Mostly the grease is just preventing corrosion.
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raYzerman wrote: ↑Sun Nov 03, 2019 12:12 am
Despite the lack of grease, there is little risk of damage. The driveshaft is spring-loaded at the back end and is constantly holding the u-joint under full engagement regardless of swingarm travel. This will result in little movement/wear in the longtitudinal direction, with minor wear in the rotational direction, fortunately. I hate this too, hate seeing rust. Any grease will do, but of course, we all want the best and use moly. Mostly the grease is just preventing corrosion.
Stop using logic and reason. OMFG Yamaha WTF!!
Funny, my 100,000 mile looked exactly like your never lubed 20K one. By the way, wtf is heat induced rust? Rust is oxidation, which really is slow burning. Rust IS heat.
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Some of you Canucks seem to have heat on the brain lately, wazzup wid dat??
Update: I've had her out on a couple of shake down runs now and the bike is silky smooth at all speeds again. This is something I've been missing since YFO '17 in Cali where it developed a harmonic shudder at speeds above 40 mph but most pronounced at around 50 mph and had no clue where it was coming from. Whatever the mechanics were that were involved, the bottom line is that since doing this service, it is now gone.
Last edited by NTXFJR on Sun Nov 03, 2019 11:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Bounce loved this
We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.
I clean and re-grease mine every winter. I was extremely surprised and disappointed with the amount of rust on mine last winter with only one season and 23,000 km on the clock.
NTXFJR wrote: ↑Sun Nov 03, 2019 5:48 pm
Some of you Canucks seem to have heat on the brain lately, wazzup wid dat??
Update: I've had her out on a couple of shake down runs now and the bike is silky smooth at all speeds again. This is something I've been missing since YFO '17 in Cali where it developed a harmonic shudder at speeds above 40 mph but most pronounced at around 50 mph and had no clue where it was coming from. Whatever the mechanics were that were involved, the bottom line is that since doing this service, it is now gone.
Well the bad news is, if greasing made it better then it will be back as soon as the grease is pushed out from the splines. Which happens fairly quickly after done.
Some grease might ooze out over time, but I don’t think much will be pushed out under pressure as there really isn’t any pressure in there. I think the grease mostly swishes from one side of the splines to the other during acceleration and deceleration and that having a lubed transition in there is better then a dry crusty one. I’ve seen splined industrial motor couplings seize up with rust so badly that they wouldn’t come back apart and anti seize compound stopped that issue. I doubt the torque imposed on our fjr drivelines are that extreme but I still think it’s easier on components in the long run to keep things slick and fluid. The grease may dry up or go away but periodic pm’s can take care of that.
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We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.
Exactly how many FJR shaft drives have failed due to corrosion or lack of sufficient lubrication? (I haven't heard of any failures but remember someone talking about what they thought was excessive play in the u-joint.)
In almost 200,000 miles on my '07, I cleaned and lightly greased the shaft, drive splines and u-joint exactly once. Removed a bit of surface rust that time and added the coating of grease to inhibit further rust formation. Checked it every couple years but never felt it needed anything done to it. Very light rust patina and no evidence of wear in the splines.
Yeah - this is one of those issues that will likely never get resolved. I'm from the … "Probably is a waste of time. But well - it can't hurt. It probably doesn't matter, but doing it makes me feel better." ….camp.
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NTXFJR wrote: ↑Sun Nov 03, 2019 5:48 pm
Some of you Canucks seem to have heat on the brain lately, wazzup wid dat??
Update: I've had her out on a couple of shake down runs now and the bike is silky smooth at all speeds again. This is something I've been missing since YFO '17 in Cali where it developed a harmonic shudder at speeds above 40 mph but most pronounced at around 50 mph and had no clue where it was coming from. Whatever the mechanics were that were involved, the bottom line is that since doing this service, it is now gone.
Well the bad news is, if greasing made it better then it will be back as soon as the grease is pushed out from the splines. Which happens fairly quickly after done.
John Deere corn head grease...hard to push it around...
raYzerman wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2019 8:21 pm
That'll work.... once done, it will last quite a while... not a bad idea for once a year or so, or at some convenient rear tire change.....
MHO, waste of time doing it that often. I disassemble mine once every two or three yrs, whenever the splooge needs to be cleaned from the side stand springs/pivot or the shift pedal linkages need a clean and lube. When running a car tire there is no convenient time for a rear tire change for 2 or 3 yrs at a time.
Bounce wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:16 am
Wouldn't it be more mileage dependent? One person's "every 3 years" might be someone else's "every 3 months".
I think not so much mileage as usage. Desert riders need not do it as often as we here in the southeast riding in rain often and with many dirt roads. At the extreme, thrice in the past 2 yrs I've been in hurricanes with deep standing water and still the driveshaft lube is holding up well.
